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Stop The Presses! Fox News Just Admitted The GOP Tax Plans Would Put Us Trillions In Debt

These are strange times we live in, my friends. How strange? Strange enough that even Fox News is now admitting the proposed tax plans of the 2016 GOP candidates would add trillions to the national debt.

Yeah, I know: Pretty soon cats and dogs will be getting along and living in perfect harmony worldwide.

On the Thursday edition of Shepard Smith Reporting, a discussion of Republican tax proposals actually devolved into a perfectly clear moment of truth-telling.

Tax Expert Say What?

Peter Barnes of the Fox Business Network reported that after careful analysis of tax plans from Bush, Cruz, Jindal, Paul, Rubio, Santorum, and Trump, here was the somewhat muddled (and in need of a good CPA) bottom-line:

“Jeb Bush reduced the seven current personal income tax brackets to three with the top rate of 28 percent instead of 39.6. He’d cap capital gains taxes at 20 percent and he’d cut the top corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 20 percent. Marco Rubio wants two personal tax brackets with a top tax rate of 35 percent. You’d pay no taxes on capital gains and investment gains with him. His corporate tax rate would be 25 percent. And for Donald Trump, there would be three brackets with a 25 percent top rate. Capital gains would be taxed at 20 percent and he wants a 15 percent top corporate tax rate. Now even assuming higher economic growth for all of these plans, the Tax Foundation estimates they’d add as little as $1.6 trillion more to the national debt in Bush’s case, and as much as $10 trillion more to the national debt for Trump.”

Shep Stunned!

“Yeah, and the difference is with how many other deductions you eliminate, and he eliminates a whole lot more of them.”

We Agree To Be Fiscally Ignorant…Shake On It

Just a day after the last GOP debate, Forbes investment contributor Stan Callender issued his own opinion of what had transpired the night before as the candidates discussed economic issues:

“They disagreed with nonpartisan analyses that showed their tax plans losing trillions even when those scores were produced using the GOP-preferred dynamic scoring techniques. … There was nothing that should give anyone any comfort that comprehensive tax reform will happen any time — as in multiple years — soon. And it’s hard to imagine how what was said will do anything but fortify the ultra conservatives in the House and Senate and make them even more likely to act as legislative terrorists on anything related to the federal budget.”

So could it actually be that Fox News knows the truth about the voodoo economic plans of the GOP wannabes and plans to warn us all? Yeah, they let it slip once, but who expects them to repeat it again? Lay your 10 trillion on the “not gonna happen” option and you might just win a nice prize.